August 2010

In my July 28 column I write about water as an ingredient that can enhance the flavors of strong spirits, cocktails, high-alcohol wines, and coffee. Added water has little or no flavor of its own, but it boosts the aroma of alcoholic drinks by diluting the alcohol and loosening its hold on aroma molecules, and makes delicate coffee aromas more noticeable.

Audrey Saunders of Pegu Club in New York has created a number of "inverted drinks" in which a spirit plays the supporting role to a lower-alcohol wine-based ingredient, rather than the usual other way around. Try her Intro to Aperol and also her Madeira Martinez, which is now one of my favorite cocktails.

In my June 30 Curious Cook column, I write about the challenges of genuinely low and slow cooking on home grills, and provide a recipe for reliably moist ribs cooked in the oven, with smokiness provided by pimentón chilli powder.

Many readers have pointed out that simple rib racks help keep more than one slab suitably distant from the hot flames or coals. This is true, and the column would have been better for having included that option.

In my June 9 Curious Cook column I present the culinary highlights from a new and surprisingly readable treatise on Garlic and Other Alliums written by Eric Block, the world's leading authority on the chemistry of the onion family and a professor at SUNY Albany. In addition to many fascinating cultural and botanical details, the book describes the several Allium flavor tribes, explains how to control their pungency, notes the source and treatment of garlic breath, and warns of the hazard posed by garlic and onions to household pets.